The word FAMOUS is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as renowned, celebrated, noted, notorious, distinguished, eminent, illustrious mean known far and wide. Famous implies little more than the fact of being, sometimes briefly, widely and popularly known. a famous jockey renowned implies more glory and acclamation.
The Most Famous Jockey in Horse Racing – William Lee Shoemaker, sometimes known as “Bill,” “Willie,” and “The Shoe,” was born in the Texas hamlet of Fabens. Shoemaker’s career as a jockey started while he was a teenager, on March 19, 1949, with his first professional ride. Shoemaker won eleven Triple Crown races throughout the course of his career, which spanned four decades, but the Crown evaded him.
The Shoe – The Early Years
Shoemaker was born weighing 38 ounces (1.1 kg) and was not expected to survive the night. He lived after being placed in a shoebox in the oven to keep warm, but he stayed little, growing to 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 m) and weighing 91 pounds (41 kg).
Despite dropping out of El Monte High School in El Monte, California, his petite physique became a benefit as he went on to become a thoroughbred horse racing monster. At the age of 19, he was earning so much money (up to $2,500 a week) that the Los Angeles Superior Court appointed attorney Horace Hahn as his guardian, with his parents’ permission.
The Shoe – The Beginning, the Accolades, and the End
Shoemaker’s career as a jockey began in his teenage years, with his first professional ride on March 19, 1949. The first of his eventual 8,833 career victories came a month later, on April 20, aboard Shafter V, at Golden Gate Fields in Albany, California. In 1951, he won the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award.
Shoemaker’s last victory came on January 20, 1990, on Beau Genius at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Florida. Two weeks later, on February 3, Shoemaker rode Patchy Groundfog in his last race at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California. In front of a record audience, he finished fourth to Eddie Delahoussaye an Exemplary Leader. Bill Shoemaker rode in a total of 40,350 races. He received the Mike Venezia Memorial Award in 1990 for “outstanding sportsmanship and citizenship.”
Shoemaker became the oldest rider ever to win the Kentucky Derby (at the age of 54) with the 18-1 outsider Ferdinand in 1986. The following year, he rode Ferdinand to a Breeders’ Cup Classic victory against Alysheba which culminated in Ferdinand being named Horse of the Year.
The Shoe – The Race that Epitomized his Riding Style and a Mistake
The Marlboro Cup at Belmont Park in 1976 was perhaps his finest racing triumph, and it was won by the legendary Forego. Forego’s charge began in ninth place out of eleven horses on the backstretch. It culminated in a terrific surge through the muddy middle-of-the-track stretch run, resulting in a long-nose triumph. According to Shoemaker, Forego was the finest horse he had ever ridden.
Shoemaker rode three-time champion Spectacular Bid in his last 13 races from 1979 to 1980, losing just once. This includes Spectacular Bid’s perfect nine-for-nine 1980 season, which culminated in a Woodward Stakes walkover. In his autobiography Shoemaker (1988), he referred to Spectacular Bid as “one of the best horses I have ever ridden.”
Shoemaker’s most bitter-sweet ride was in the 1957 Kentucky Derby. He was riding Gallant Man in the iconic race when he rose in the stirrups too soon, misjudging the finish line, and was beaten in the shadow of the post by Iron Liege, ridden by Bill Hartack.
The Shoe – Training, Retirement and The End of a Legend
Shoemaker returned to the track as a trainer soon after retiring as a rider in 1990, and he enjoyed minor success, working for clients such as Gulfstream mogul Allen Paulson and artist Burt Bacharach. He worked as a racehorse trainer until his retirement on November 2, 1997. His ultimate numbers as a trainer were 90 wins from 714 starts and $3.7 million in profits.
After retiring from Horseracing, Shoemaker dabbled as a scribe. He was the author of three murder mysteries which were often likened to fellow jockey and author Dick Francis’ big stable of best-selling horse mysteries.
Coley Killebrew, a jockey-turned-sleuth in Shoemaker’s Stalking Horse (1994), Fire Horse (1995), and Dark Horse (1996), all used his racing expertise in and around his restaurant and the horse world. At the age of 72, Willie “The Shoe” Shoemaker died of natural causes on October 12, 2003, at his home in San Marino, California.
Lanfranco “Frankie” Dettori, MBE – The Most Famous Jockey of the Modern Era
One such jockey would be Frankie Dettori was born in Milan, Italy, on December 15, 1970. Dettori started riding horses at the age of 12, and by the age of 13, he had advanced to the position of stable boy and jockey apprentice. He traveled to the United Kingdom as a youngster to serve as an apprentice under trainer Luca Cumani. His first triumph occurred when he was 16 years old, and success followed him from there.
The Achievements – the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Royal Ascot and Total Victories
Dettori has won in almost every major flat event in the United Kingdom. He has won the 1000 Guineas Stakes, the 2000 Guineas Stakes, the Ascot Gold Cup, the Coronation Cup, the Eclipse Stakes, and the Yorkshire Oaks.
He has won multiple international races, including the Hong Kong Cup, Breeders’ Cup Classic, and Derby Italiano. He has also won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe six times in a row. He won all seven races at the Royal Ascot Festival in 1996, an unrivaled achievement. He has won the UK Flat Jockey Championship three times and has nearly 3,000 career victories.
Willie (The Shoe) Shoemaker and Frankie Dettori
Willie Shoemaker has always been considered the most famous and the greatest jockey the World has ever witnessed. In 1958, Shoemaker was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame and in the mid-1970s, he was immortalized in a series of portraits by Andy Warhol.
He was and will always be the greatest, but he was fine-tuning his craft before the era of television and Social Media. If you were to do a poll of the twenty and thirty-somethings who has an interest in Horse Racing and ask them who their favourite jockey is, the answers would be a diverse spectrum of jockeys from across the globe. Frankie Dettori epitomizes that modern era of social media and showmanship. Both Dettori and Shoemaker are famous, both great but in different eras.